The use of cartographic representations in 3D views gathers the advantages of technological advances, but it faces a lack of knowledge needed to build them properly from the point of view of cartographic communication. Consequences include misconceptions in map design that can restrain or even impair the understanding of represented features and their spatial relations. One use for 3D maps is virtual navigation supported by three-dimensional topographic maps. The problem of determination of relative orientation and the selection of reference points on virtual environments is aggravated by the lack of knowledge of how users react to the new perspective and perceptive differences proposed by it. Therefore, this research presents the comparison of sketch-maps made from 3D representations with those from conventional topographical maps to identify which features are used for navigation. The test methodology combines the Think Aloud protocol and questionnaires. The 43 volunteers selected produced 179 sketch maps that were evaluated by the qualitative methods described above and by the Kruskall-Wallis statistical method as well. By identifying the number of reference points, the topology among them and the orientation for the whole sketch map, we were able to find evidences of the success in the proposal to navigate with 3D topographic maps.
3D Topographic Maps; Virtual Navigation; User-Centered Design
